chalk that one up to experience
It appears that the reason I had such a hard time finding an S-video to component converter is that the resulting picture is absolute crap.
(I was hooking my old laptop up to the TV and wanted an arrangement of cables that allowed me to have the laptop and the DVD player connected simultaneously. Now I'll just have to swap out the audio cables when we watch DVDs, which is rare these days between the DVR and SteelyKid. And yes, I am quite sure what connections I have usefully available, thank you very much. (None of the equipment in question is new or even new-ish.))
And since I have spent more time doing that than I should considering SteelyKid's cold (she's getting better, but the past few nights have been very short on sleep), g'night, everybody.